For plant health, this invention provides a system for early detection of crop diseases, nutrient concentrations, and water stress, ensuring the overall health of a plant. For human health, this invention provides a system for monitoring and diagnosing a number of conditions, including but not limited to reporting hemoglobin and glucose concentration levels.
Utilizing optical methodologies for the diagnosis of plant health has historically been very successful. These methodologies can largely be divided into point and swath measurements. For swath measurements, aerial or ground based image analysis and hyper spectral imaging are predominant. For point measurements, standard spectral reflectance, diffuse spectral reflectance, polarization rotation, absorption, fluorescence, and spontaneous Raman scattering have been successfully demonstrated in academic or laboratory settings.
However, when transitioning these methodologies into the field for research or commercial use, generally the embodiment of the instrumentation must be revised. For example, for optical point measurements, which this invention is directed towards, the affordability, size, and usability of the instrument are critical. Usually, miniaturization and standardization of equipment protocols are needed. However, due to the sophistication of laboratory equipment, such a transition is often difficult. In the cases when an instrument can be successfully made compact and easy to use by non-specialists, the original performance of the instrument that enables the methodology to be so successful in a laboratory setting, is oftentimes compromised. As a result, instrumentation designed for testing or diagnosis in the field, rarely is comparable in capabilities to the laboratory grade instrumentation that it was based upon.
Certain measures of plant health made in a field setting require the specifications that laboratory grade instrument provides, but must also be compact, affordable, and usable in a field setting in order to be of practical use. The present invention is directed towards such applications. More specifically, the present invention is directed towards a platform for optical detection that enables quantitative nutrient diagnosis, quantitative water stress analysis, early stage disease detection, disease differentiation, and health condition evaluation through design of a miniature self-referencing spectrophotometer.